This invention relates to message-oriented digital communication, such as that which can be utilized between a Bank Controller Unit and peripheral devices.
In present digital loop transmission technology, digital transmission occurs between a central office terminal and a remote terminal, and between a remote terminal and the subscribers. The various units of the remote terminal, such as channel units, are controlled by a Bank Controller Unit which communicates with the various peripheral units through a register-oriented interface.
The development of new features in the loop systems, such as automated channel test units (see Abrams et al, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 548,464, filed Jul. 3, 1990), and channel unit inventory control schemes, requires the transfer of large blocks of data (typically tens or hundreds of bytes). Such transfers require protection against errors which may be beyond the capacity of existing Bank Controller link protocols.
Message-oriented systems have been proposed for data communications (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,533 issued to Hodel et al). It is desirable to provide a message-oriented system which will transport error-protected messages of arbitrary content and length, and which is compatible with existing Bank Controller Unit protocols.